It used to be top notch company,but afther Fryette departure,they moved their production to China and turned towards cheap stuff...
Id ruther look into original inventors stuff
http://www.sfdamp.com/default.htm

^ as he said, the original vht is now fryette. they're very nice amps, if very dear here in europe.

I've got one of the new vht special 6 amps, it's pretty nice (for the money). There's a fair bit of background noise, it doesn't have much headroom, and ideally it could be a little brighter, but for the money (around ?100) it's a nice amp, i'd say it's noticeably nicer than things like the valve junior etc.

^ as he said, the original vht is now fryette. they're very nice amps, if very dear here in europe.

I've got one of the new vht special 6 amps, it's pretty nice (for the money). There's a fair bit of background noise, it doesn't have much headroom, and ideally it could be a little brighter, but for the money (around ?100) it's a nice amp, i'd say it's noticeably nicer than things like the valve junior etc.

Cheers for that Dave, that's exactly what I was after, first hand info.

I contacted Alnicomagnet from ebay - aka Nigel to see whether he's had a look at these amps too:-

Hi Chris, yes, I've got a head and a combo and
have just finished the head. I've got rid of the
hum as much as possible, and changed some
components to give more of a Fender sound. The
only problem is because the components are not
numbered, it would be difficult to write
instructions. I'm looking into it though. Cheers,
Nigel

It's a fender-based amp- the preamp is based on a fixed TMB blackface tonestack, with a footswitchable boost to partially bypass some of the tonestack for a warmer, hotter (tweedier?) tone. For the money, it's hard to complain- handwired, footswitchable boost, triode/pentode operation, 4/8/16 ohm speaker jacks, high and low input jacks. I have the combo version.

Pros:

- It sounds pretty Fendery, especially with Fender-style single coils, it has a nice warm bouncy tone.
- Takes pedals pretty well (though not as well as a valve junior).
- Very touch-responsive.
- Cleans and crunch tones are very nice indeed for the money.
- Handwired (if that means anything; it certainly makes it easier to mod if you're that way inclined, though if you don't know what you're doing, bear in mind you can DIE if you open an amp up, so don't do it).
- Lots of features for the price, and they're all pretty useful and don't make it feel or sound like a non-vintage amp.
- The boost is almost like having two styles of Fender amp- blackface (boost off) and tweed (boost on).
- Can take most octal output valves (though I haven't tried this myself, and in the combo version it looks like the speaker might be in the way of larger octal output valves) for a change in tone.

Cons:

- There's a fair bit of background noise
- Very little clean headroom, even with low output single coils, and the volume knob taper is very abrupt (it's overdriven by 9-o'clock on the volume control with most pickups) while the knob itself is a bit loose
-Triode mode sounds very different to pentode, with a lot less gain and sparkle- you can't really use triode mode to get the cranked-up tone at lower volumes. Ditto the low input- it lowers the gain, but also the sparkle (which is what I want for cleaner tones).
- Cabinet is supposedly MDF
- Can sound a little harsh when overdriven too hard.
- Ideally might have a little more brightness for the unboosted mode.

Disclaimer: Mine is the only one I've tried, I ordered it without trying it- some of the cons, like the background noise and slightly dodgy volume pot, might not be apparent on all of them (or again, they may be). I simply don't know. That also might sound like a lot of cons- bear in mind I see no point in not being honest, and if all those cons were fixed it'd be almost like the perfect amp, let alone for the money- and it's still very nice for the money even with those cons.

----

there's some info on it on the frugal guitarist website (and the forums there), and an interview with the designer, just to let you know.

I was mucking about the Special 6 combo yesterday and quite liked it. Unlike Dave_Mc I didn't have a problem with background noise -- in fact, for a single-ended combo, I thought it was pretty quiet. Certainly quieter than my Vibrochamp or the EL84-based 5W amp I have.

Other than that I'd agree with most of what Dave says. Main caveat being that when you crank it up beyond six or so it sounds horrible -- all you get is a nasty middly honk from the cabinet. At lower volumes it sounds very good, with the exception that the lowest three or four notes on the E string sound weak -- it's as though the bass suddenly cuts off below A. I have the head/cab version here too, but haven't tried that yet.

Compared with my Vibrochamp, it's a lot smoother-sounding, doesn't cut through in the upper mids so much. Which can be a good or a bad thing.

^ Yeah, I should point out that since I posted in here, I've been asking around on the other few forums where people have tried them and I think mine's faulty- the background noise and dodgy volume pot taper don't seem to be happening on anyone else's.